{"id":605,"date":"2021-11-04T17:07:50","date_gmt":"2021-11-04T17:07:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/?p=605"},"modified":"2021-11-06T16:18:52","modified_gmt":"2021-11-06T16:18:52","slug":"a-place-called-ananda-ch-2-masters-commission-to-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/a-place-called-ananda-ch-2-masters-commission-to-me\/","title":{"rendered":"A Place Called Ananda, Ch. 2: Master\u2019s Commission to Me"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Swami Kriyananda as a young monk, talking with members of the Hollywood Self-Realization Fellowship Church.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Sabbath was made for man,<\/strong> not man for the Sabbath.\u201d Similar sentiments have been stated by masters down through the ages. Institutions of any kind are a means to an end, never an end in themselves. I cannot think of a single statement by any great master who ever lived that contradicts this view, whether in regard to a social convention like the Sabbath or an organization divinely instituted.<\/p>\n

Paramhansa Yogananda, in his autobiography, makes clear his disinclination for organized religion. His distaste was based on the fact that, to find God, one must go within.<\/em> He often stressed the importance of loving others outwardly, too, of expressing concern for their<\/em> needs \u2013 above all for their spiritual needs, but also for their physical and psychological needs. He came to the West not with the primary purpose of starting an organization, but to help souls. The organization he founded was only a means to that end.<\/p>\n

It was an important means, for it helped anchor the work and give it a solid foundation without which the influence of his presence on the West might have been like snow \u2013 beautiful for a season, but only a memory by summertime. Still, the organization itself was not his message; it was a means, only, by which his spiritual message could be spread.<\/p>\n

It is strange, how many of those who he hoped would teach on his behalf ended up teaching on their own behalf. Strange, too, how many of these ended up betraying him, turning against him to bolster their own need for self-importance.<\/p>\n

Yet Master wanted his message to spread. He couldn\u2019t be out touring the country, teaching, and at the same time train the disciples at Mt. Washington who would carry on his work after he left. And the disciples who came and stayed were those humble few who came seeking only God. He accepted gratefully what God sent him. It was in the fitness of things that he gave the responsibility for carrying on his work to these loyal ones who had served him with unconditional devotion for so many years.<\/p>\n

\u201cFeed My Sheep\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

He still needed others, however, who would think not so much of the needs of the organization as of the needs of the people whom the organization was created to serve. It was to men, primarily, that he looked for the manifestation of this kind of energy. As he put it once, \u201cMen\u2019s energy has a more outward thrust; women\u2019s is more inward. Even their bodies reveal these differences.\u201d<\/p>\n

In May, 1950, while I was walking with him at his retreat at Twenty-Nine Palms, he said to me, \u201cApart from Saint Lynn (Rajarsi Janakananda), every man<\/em> has disappointed me.\u201d He added with intense earnestness, \u201cAnd you mustn\u2019t disappoint me!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Yet he had other good men disciples, and had, in the past, had many more: Mr. Black (Yogacharya Oliver), Dr. Lewis, Michael (Brother Bhaktananda), Mr. Dickinson, Mr. Cuaron \u2013 numerous others. What did he mean by saying that \u201cevery man\u201d had disappointed him? His disappointment, obviously, wasn\u2019t on spiritual grounds. Surely his meaning was, rather, that none of those men had shown an interest in spreading<\/em> his message. None had shown the understanding that his teachings were for the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

Dr. Lewis often scoffed at teachers who, as he put it, \u201cjust get up and blow.\u201d I sympathized with his attitude. I myself was not interested in lecturing. I had come to Master to find God. In fact, I subscribed wholly to the prevalent thinking at Mt. Washington that public speaking and teaching were for those who liked personal recognition. Such recognition meant nothing to me.<\/p>\n

Yet I did want to help people. And helping people meant, in the context of Master\u2019s work, not giving food to the poor so much as inspiration and guidance to truth-hungry souls. Master, seeing my interest, encouraged me in that direction.<\/p>\n

Once, on seeing me recovered from a mood, Master said to me, \u201cNo more moods, now. Otherwise, how will you be able to help people?\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019d been with him five months when he looked at me concentratedly one day and said, \u201cI have plans for you, Walter.\u201d Because he had been speaking at the time to a young monk, Harvey Allen, about sending him to India, I thought he was thinking of sending me there also. But it appears his plans were somewhat different.<\/p>\n

I had been with him only eight months, and was still twenty-two, when he had me speak in his stead at the San Diego church. Even more frightening to me was his instruction that I give Kriya Yoga initiation to a member of the congregation. I\u2019d never spoken in public before. And I\u2019d only attended one Kriya initiation \u2013 three months after my arrival. When I emerged on the platform to speak, I found the church packed beyond capacity. People were standing outdoors, leaning in at the windows. Even worse than the crowd, from my point of view, was the test of that one member at the initiation afterward staring at me intently for the two hours that it took to complete the ceremony.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard it said that high on the list of people\u2019s greatest fears is the dread of speaking in public. Fortunately for me, I\u2019ve never experienced fear or even nervousness before an audience. The reason is not that I\u2019ve been puffed-up, happy to be the center of attention, or eager to display to others my powers of persuasion. Quite the opposite. The audience\u2019s response has been, to me, a matter of indifference. My feeling, simply, has always been, \u201cWhatever is, is.\u201d If people perceive me as a fool, or if in fact I am<\/em> a fool, what does it matter? I want to please God, not human beings. And if lecturing is my Guru-given service to Him, then I will lecture for Him. Nothing matters except that He be pleased.<\/p>\n

For many years I held that thought too exclusively. But then in meditation one day I understood that I must please Him through<\/em> others, for it was His presence in them, their own superconscious Self, that I needed to reach. Since then, I have thought of my Guru as residing in the souls of the people I speak to.<\/p>\n

Ananda Mata objected to me once in India, \u201cHow can you think of yourself as teaching your guru?\u201d I explained, first, that I never teach, for teaching, to me, is an act of sharing.<\/em> And second, I said, by seeing Master as residing in each member of an audience I can ask him to bless that person, through my words and the vibrations I channel from him, that he awaken him or her in divine love.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t want to lecture, at first, but I didn\u2019t want to be unwilling, either. I once said to Master, \u201cI don\u2019t want to have to lecture.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019d better learn to like it, then,\u201d he replied. \u201cThat is what you will have to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thus, for quite a few years I simply took it as my bad karma that I had to help keep the churches full by taking my turn speaking in them, while others, more spiritual than I, could remain quietly serving behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

One time Master was lamenting to the monks about the numbers of ministers in the work who had allowed praise to go to their heads, and as a result had fallen spiritually.<\/p>\n

\u201cSir,\u201d I said, \u201cthat is why I don\u2019t want to be a minister.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was surprised at the gravity with which he sought to reassure me: \u201cYou will never<\/em> fall due to ego!\u201d<\/p>\n

This was a consolation, certainly, but it didn\u2019t release any pent-up desire in myself to \u201cget out there and wow the public.\u201d It was only after I\u2019d been lecturing almost weekly for seven years that I was brought to recognize that my lectures actually did do some good. One day, someone told me that a talk of mine had persuaded him, after many years of atheism, that God exists. Another day, someone else told me he\u2019d been contemplating suicide, but after hearing me lecture he felt renewed faith in life.<\/p>\n

Lecturing<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cIf even one or two people are really helped,\u201d I began to think, \u201cthen what does it matter what unspiritual karma I have that keeps me in the public eye? At least I\u2019m doing what I really want to do, which is help people.\u201d From then on I took the job of lecturing very seriously \u2013 even to the extent (this may seem strange to you) of preparing my talks. In time I learned, much to my surprise, that the talks people liked best were one or two that I hadn\u2019t had time to prepare at all.<\/p>\n

My focus was not inward, on people\u2019s impression of me, but outward \u2013 on their need for spiritual insight. What Master\u2019s work meant to me was its power to help others. But it went against my nature to think small. If a thing was good, it must be good for everyone. Why limit the benefits to a handful of people? Thus, I universalized every idea. To me, Master has always been for the world.<\/p>\n

A friend of mine met an ex-SRF monk recently who had been with Master during those years. The man told my friend, \u201cI once heard Yogananda say, \u2018If Walter had come sooner, we would have reached millions!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Organizing the Monks<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Master always encouraged me in my enthusiasm for sharing his teachings with others. To train me, perhaps, he put me in charge of the other monks. Though I\u2019d been with him less than a year, I took this charge seriously. It pained me to see how many monks came and went, and how few realized what they had in Master! Those who had held this position before me had thought in terms of their own dignity and importance. They never saw their job in terms of the needs of the monks. I remember Dr. Lewis in Encinitas once, on finding me seated on a box in the back of a van that was leaving Encinitas for Mt. Washington. \u201cYou should be sitting in front,\u201d he remarked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy?\u201d I inquired.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause,\u201d he said, stating what seemed to him the obvious, \u201cyou\u2019re in charge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor that very reason I belong in back,\u201d I replied. What mattered to me was the job I had to do; its trappings were to me a matter of indifference.<\/p>\n

I was determined to do what I could to organize the monks and develop in them a group spirit, which had been sadly lacking before. My youth was against me, unfortunately. So also was the fact that the monks had never been organized until then. A number of the older monks, especially, were determined to boycott my efforts. I could only ignore their efforts and concentrate on those who saw the need for being organized, as I did. Gradually, over a few years, the \u201chold-outs\u201d joined us \u2013 or, alternatively, left.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it was after Master saw my firm commitment to his teachings and to placing his will above all other considerations, that he said to me one day, \u201cYou have a great work to do.\u201d He had been addressing Herbert Freed, a minister who was about to leave to be in charge of our church in Phoenix, Arizona. I assumed his last remark was addressed also to Herbert, and turned to him with a smile that said, \u201cGood luck!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s you I\u2019m talking to, Walter,\u201d Master corrected me.<\/p>\n

From then on he told me many times, \u201cWalter, you have a great work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because the primary need of the organization at the time seemed to me to be consolidation, whereas lecturing was something that others were doing far more competently than I, my assumption for many years was that the work he wanted me to do was organizing.<\/p>\n

Organization had never been \u201cmy thing.\u201d My ambition before coming to Master had been to be a playwright and a poet. I had looked upon writing as a means of inspiring people with new insights into the truth of things.<\/p>\n

I remember my cousin Bet writing to me from Wellesley College when I was a student at Brown University. She was thinking, she said, of studying to become a doctor. In reply I wrote, \u201cThat certainly is a laudable ideal. Now that you raise this point, however, it leads me to ask myself, What do I want to do with my life? I realize, in thinking it over, that I don\u2019t want to take sick people and make them well. I want to take well people and help them to become better. For I find that even after sickness is removed, very few people are happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

After some time I had given up writing, persuaded at last that I didn\u2019t know enough truth, so how could I help anyone? I wound up as a disciple of a great guru. When I came to Master, I was indifferent to religious organizations of any kind. It hadn\u2019t even penetrated my mind, as I read Autobiography of a Yogi,<\/em> that he had<\/em> an organization. For Master\u2019s sake now, however, and in the belief that he wanted me to help build his work, I set my own disaffection with institutionalism aside and dived enthusiastically into the task of organizing one aspect after another of Self-Realization Fellowship.<\/p>\n

My first job was organizing the monks, inasmuch as he\u2019d put me in charge of them.<\/p>\n

It might have dawned on me from a few signs he gave me that organizing SRF wasn\u2019t the direction he intended for me. The first hint came while I was suffering a period of poor health. I suggested to him that he relieve me of my responsibility for the monks. He\u2019d seemed pleased with what I\u2019d accomplished with them already, though he did scold me once for accepting applicants too readily. Actually, I assumed he would answer as he had when I\u2019d told him I didn\u2019t want to lecture: \u201cYou\u2019d better accept that that is your duty in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

To my surprise \u2013 and, I admit, some dismay in the thought that perhaps I\u2019d displeased him after all \u2013 he replied simply, \u201cI have been thinking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, he didn\u2019t relieve me of that responsibility, but the fact that he\u2019d even considered doing so should have been my clue that this wasn\u2019t the destiny he\u2019d intended for me.<\/p>\n

He also didn\u2019t tell the other leaders of the work about his plans for me. Had he done so, my life might have turned out very differently. (But that account must be reserved for later telling.) Instead, after his passing, my superiors in the work, except for Rajarsi, never thought of me in terms of any work that didn\u2019t take its definition from them. (Once, I mentioned to Daya Mata that Master had said I had a great work to do. Her reply, after a pause, was, \u201cYes, all of us have a great work to do.\u201d This thought was one with which I also, of course, agreed wholeheartedly.)<\/p>\n

Master told me many of his ideas for the work, but never, as I look back, with the suggestion, \u201cThis is what I want you to do in your efforts to build SRF.\u201d Rather, he told me specifically, \u201cYour work is writing and lecturing.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the occasion I just mentioned I asked him, \u201cBut Master, hasn\u2019t everything been written that needs saying?\u201d I was thinking of his own books, many of which had yet to be published (and some of which are still waiting to be published).<\/p>\n

At my question he looked almost shocked. \u201cDon\u2019t say that!\u201d he exclaimed. \u201cMuch<\/em> yet remains to be written.\u201d<\/p>\n

One day at Twenty-Nine Palms he looked at me and, out of the blue (I thought), said, \u201cI predict you will make a good editor someday, Walter.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was his ideas<\/em> he wanted me to present to people. That was the \u201cgreat work\u201d he had in mind for me. I see it clearly now.<\/p>\n

Expansion from Outside<\/strong><\/h2>\n

What I couldn\u2019t imagine at the time, but understand now at last, was that he knew I would have to work outside the framework of his organization to work effectively. Any such thought would have been, to me, an abomination. SRF, to my mind, was<\/em> his work. To serve him meant, to me, serving SRF.<\/p>\n

And yet, I recall one evening at the Lake Shrine, when Master was walking back to his car with a group of us monks after a concert \u201cunder the stars,\u201d as it had been advertised. Master turned to me and said, \u201cSomeday those who leave here will have their own groups: Jan, David, et cetera, et cetera.\u201d I don\u2019t know what became of Jan and David, having lost touch with them since they left. I believe now, however, that Master was hinting to me to continue working for him even after I was no longer a part of SRF.<\/p>\n

That he saw the work in broader terms than the organization itself I understood also from something he told Debi Mukherjee, a Bengali disciple living then at Mt. Washington. \u201cSomeday,\u201d Master said, \u201clion-like swamis will come from India and spread this message all over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many years later, in India, I repeated his words to Daya Mata, who was by then the president of SRF. \u201cWell,\u201d she replied dismissively, \u201che never said that to me!<\/em>\u201d \u2013 as if he therefore could never have said it at all. Her reaction to Master\u2019s statement to Debi helped me to understand that what Master had revealed to each one of us was a segment, only, of an infinitely larger picture.<\/p>\n

I might also have suspected that his plans for me were different from what I imagined from the fact that he never put me in charge of a church (as he did several of my peers), but had me lead the service one Sunday a month at three of our main churches. Thus, apparently, he didn\u2019t want me to become entangled in the affairs of one particular congregation or of one particular aspect of the organization.<\/p>\n

Meera Mata, a close disciple of Master\u2019s, told me once, \u201cI\u2019ve always felt that the work would spread from outside SRF.\u201d I wondered how such a thing could come to pass, but her words lingered in my memory.<\/p>\n

Master accepted the help God gave him for the spread of his mission. But he had a larger mission to fulfill. If the means of fulfillment were not to come in one way, they would have to come in another.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  \u201cThe Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.\u201d Similar sentiments have been stated by masters down through the ages. Institutions of any kind are a means to an end, never an end in themselves. I cannot think of a single statement by any great master who ever lived that contradicts this … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nA Place Called Ananda, Ch. 2: Master\u2019s Commission to Me - Swami Kriyananda: Lightbearer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A direct disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda recalls the guru's instructions to him as a young monk.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/a-place-called-ananda-ch-2-masters-commission-to-me\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta 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